Blog Archives

Tim Ferriss, the renowned and often maligned podcaster and author, doesn’t make resolutions for the new year. Instead, he likes to reflect on the year that has been and look at what events in his life brings him joy and what events do not. Using that data, he then makes sure to schedule more of what brings him joy in the year to come. Not all of us have that freedom, but I do like the intent behind his reasoning in doing so.

For me, I too don’t make resolutions, I make predictions. Predictions that are not always that likely to come true, but may not be that far-fetched when it comes to technology and our classrooms. Consumerism and pop-culture certainly play a huge role in the creation of this list. For instance, the Netflix series Black Mirror and the book Ready Player One definitely had some influence on this year’s list as both propose alternate, but possible futures.

As Tim does, it’s always good to go back and reflect before moving forward. If you would like to go back and look at the previous 5 years worth of predictions, look here. While I try and stick to education and technology’s influence on learning, I do sometimes stray to the world of pop-culture, politics, and everyday life.

And with that, I present this year’s bold predictions sure to go wrong in 2018:

AR will help us “see” students’ level of engagement

A few years back, the Melon Band was looking for funding on Kickstarter and I wondered what the possibilities would be for kids in school. The premise- you can actually see what your focus looks like via an app on your smartphone. Now extrapolate that technology out a few years and add a level of augmented reality. I predict there will be a future where the teacher can hold up their phone or a tablet and instantly see what the level of student engagement is in their class. I bet with some upgrades, you could even change your voice to the Charlie Brown teacher voice, “Wah wah wah wahhhhh” and watch their engagement tank.

Digital badging will replace college degrees

In a future world where you need to be adaptable in an unpredictable work force, being badged as an expert in several different areas could be highly marketable. Rather than spending 4 years working on one field of study, why not spend a few weeks or months getting credentialed as an HTML5 coder or a social media guru? The other benefit (besides saving more than a trillion dollars in student loan debt), would be that current employees could use badging to continue to grow, learn and improve on their craft as well as other topics they are passionate about. The flexibility and targeted focus of micro-credentials could help a company improve in areas where they have weaknesses not by hiring more people, but by improving their existing work force.

A school will fully implement AI to help with learning disabilities

Sugata Mitra had the idea of putting a “computer in the wall” to help kids teach themselves through student agency back in 2005. While this concept showed that kids with proper motivation can learn just about anything, there were still some holes to fill. With artificial intelligence and enough data points, we could get to a future where schools and classrooms can immediately learn a student’s behaviors and preferences that help them learn. The role of the teacher would be more of a project manager and instructional designer for each student in their class as they use the data to create experiences that help their students expand their future ready skills both as an individual and as a member of team.

“4D” technology will help kids truly experience history

My friend and colleague Tim Yenca (@mryenca) just returned from a trip to Disney World and recounted his experience with the Pandora ride there. The ride involves the use of virtual reality goggles and physical experiences (such as the feel of the beast you are riding actually breathing on your legs) to immerse the player into the world. With improving VR technologies and high-end resolution, it’s only a matter of time before that experience is combined with some of haptic suit (via Ready Player One) to have your students truly experience an event in history. Imagine, being in the theater when President Lincoln was assassinated? Or being on the ground when the troops stormed the beaches at Normandy? That’s the kind of experience that you can’t get from reading a textbook.

A Presidential pardon will happen via Twitter

Really? Is this that hard to envision in today’s political climate?

This year #EdTechPoetrySlam becomes a thing

My attempt at #EdTechPoetry

Shout out to Lisa Johnson (@techchef4u) for getting this idea started at the last iPadpalooza when we took 12 speakers from around the country and threw them on stage for 3 minutes without anything (no props!) except their words and microphone. I’ll admit this isn’t that bold of a prediction as I know there will be a version of this at Tech & Learning Live in Chicago (May 11) and also a soon-to-be announced exclusive after hours event during this year’s ISTE. Stay tuned for more details on that….

A ride-sharing app for parents will be invented

I have to give credit for this to my own local group of amazing community parents who brought up the need for this at a recent tech talk. Our students have tons of after school activities that they attend. You see a parent pick up their own kid to take them to the same place you are going with your kid after school. Rather than having parents play chauffeur to their kids and never have time to run other errands, why not coordinate all of that in an Uber-meets-NextDoor type app? This app would allow parents in a community to coordinate driving kids to similar activities thus cutting back on traffic and helping connect people with similar interests. Of course, the old fashioned way to do this would be just to go talk to another parent about this, but who does that these days?

Oprah will run for President

Drones in education could be a thing

While the rules and regulations around drones seem to be ever-changing and all over the map, the role of these devices in our future is certainly going to be disruptive. Knowing that these devices will play a part, what do we need to teach kids about it? How can we use this technology to give us a different view on learning? This is more than a lesson on how to build a drone for sure. The sky’s the limit….(get it?)

This past year was the last of our iPadpalooza event. The rebranding of this event into “LearnFest” has been a long time coming and this year will only feature a smaller prototype version of the event (LearnFest launches to the public in June of 2019). That said, there are a couple of ideas we’ll be trying that I can promise you have NEVER been done at a conference or learning event. Keep alert for special invites to this year’s event by following the @TheLearnFest twitter account or this blog.

My new children’s book gets a publisher and is actually published!

This is less a prediction and more of a call for help. Maybe I should launch it on Kickstarter….

A Boba Fett movie will be announced

Just making sure you read until the end. It’s been rumored but this is the year it becomes official! 🙂

For the past three years I’ve made an attempt at predicting what the future might hold for the Educational world, usually around the area of technology. The truth is, anyone can predict fairly obvious things (like Google will be the number 1 search engine), so what I attempt to do here is make some daring predictions that may or may not come true (like Alta Vista will make a comeback! Ok…maybe not that daring). Here’s a look at my 2013 and 2014 predictions which I also review every year to see how I did. Some of my predictions that have gone right include my 2013 predictions that a non-Apple devices will rise up to challenge iPads in education (see Chromebooks) and my 2014 that a new form of social media will crop up with teens (see YikYak or Whisper).

And so, I present to you, my 2015 bold predictions that are sure to go wrong this year.

Classrooms will become automated

I’m not talking about the learning in the classrooms becoming automated, this is more about the low-hanging fruit in our schools. Things like attendance, daily quizzes, etc can be done so much more efficiently with technology however they still require an element of human interaction (and teacher time). I can see a future where a student walks into a classroom and the room “knows” he/she is there, thus eliminating the need for attendance (and saving hundreds of instructional minutes a year). While this may seem big brother-ish and far fetched, I’m working with a company called Signal 360 that works on something called proximity marketing using uBeacon technology. It wouldn’t be that far-fetched to see this one come true.

Pearson will lose its testing contract in Texas

With over 50% of the UK-based company’s income coming from the state of Texas and it’s500 million dollar contract, the people at Pearson could be sweating it this year as their contract comes up for renewal in the Lone Star state. It’s no secret that Pearson is now under investigation with the FBI for it’s back-room dealing done during the L.A. iPad fiasco. Add to that a recent turbulent legislative session around standardized testing (finally!) and you start to see that Pearson could be in for a surprise this year when the contract comes up for renewal. Unfortunately (or fortunately if you are a Pearson-supporter) there are not really any other companies out there that can swoop in and grab that contract, making this prediction probably more asinine than bold. But here’s hoping….

Wearables will take over the world…and then regress

Between the Apple Watch (debuting in the next couple of months) and this gadget known as the “Ring” unveiled today at CES 2015, we’ve become smitten with wearable technology and the internet of things. I predict we’ll reach critical mass by mid-July, at which point someone will have vision problems from their Google Glasses (ala Naven Johnson’s OptiGrab invention) or get in a car accident trying to get driving directions from their watch thus resulting in the creation of the “People Against Wearables” (P.A.W.) activist group.

A human battery level app will be invented

Realizing this is counter to the above prediction, wouldn’t it be great if you could see how much energy you had left by checking an app? (or better yet a projection on your arm via something like this) “Sorry Bob, I’d like to work on that project with you but I’m only at 14% and I need to recharge.” I’m hoping with all the wearable tech out there and the power of the internet, there will soon be a way to check this. Think about how much more productive you could be if you knew this data? Or better yet, what about if we knew this data about our students? The next step would be to invent a “Student Engagement Level” app. Now that would be something.

Last year we premiered the APPmazing Race at our annual global event. This year, we’re stepping it up a notch as teams will compete on a series of challenges throughout the 3-day learning festival. At least one of the challenges we are working with in R&D is going to be pretty mind-stretching for teams participating. I can’t wait to see what they come up with! (come join the spectacle this year by registering here)

3D Printers will become common classroom (& household) items

Again, thinking bold here, but with the rapid price drop from $10,000 to closer to the $1000 range for a 3D printer, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to think we could see these in everyone’s classroom (and house) at some point in the near future. Did you break that part on your washing machine or pencil sharpener? Just download the instructions and print the replacement part!

Someone will complete the 21 things every 21st century educator should do

Based on my blog post from the fall on this subject, I’ve heard a few people try and do some of the items on the list. It’s not meant to be a challenge, it’s more to inspire thinking and ways to integrate everyday technology that kids use into learning, however it would be cool if someone actually did all the items on the list (and then blogged about it.) I’m working on a book version of this post too with Sean Junkins (see final prediction), so hopefully this will continue to grow and it would great to have an example of someone actually doing this to credit in the book.

Drones will make their way into education

Forget all this chatter about Amazon and military use of drones, when will they make their way into education? I’ve seen these given away at educational technology conferences, but I’ve yet to see any actual good application of drones in terms of learning. I can see science really getting a boost from having access to this technology right away. Imagine the old “egg drop” experiment recorded from an aerial view of a drone? Or how about athletics and band using a different view of their formations?

In December I took the #student4aday challenge and became a 10th grader for day. It was enlightening in many ways but over the winter break I started to reflect on how well do we really know our students in all grades K-12? A single day as a 10th grader is a start, but I’m thinking we need to dig deeper and expand the grade-levels of the challenge. I would love for someone to complete what I’m calling “The Billy Madison #student4aday Challenge” based on the cult-classic movie staring Adam Sandler. In the movie, Billy has to go through all grade levels from K-12 to get his diploma. We should do the same thing! Rather than being passive about this, I’m going to challenge myself to be a student in every grade level at some point in the next year and challenge other administrators to do the same. As the principal in the movie states, “Mr. Madison, that was be one of the most insanely idiotic things I’ve ever heard…” although my last prediction may be even more insane.

Carl Hooker will FINALLY publish a book

This has been on my radar for the past couple of years. As I hear more and more people tell me “you should write a book!” I’m starting to believe it (I know…that’s a scary thought). Even if my mom is the only one who buys it, I’m still hoping to publish something this year. I’ve got collaborations in the works on a couple of books and I’m working on a couple of my own ideas too…just need to find the time.

Some of these predictions I have direct control over and others I’ll be watching from a far (or on twitter) to see if they happen. At any rate, I get the feeling that 2015 will be another progressive year of change in the classroom when it comes to technology. And while some of these predictions may not come to fruition, I’m just happy to be a part of this change.